Return
by Louisa4533
Summary: The Seven and Nico return to Camp Jupiter on the grounds that the campers deserve and explanation-and Percy's possible execution (but don't worry, Reyna's only putting up a front). Tension, tears, and much ranting are displayed in this three-shot. I don't own PJO! Rated T for slight cussing. Mostly Reyna's POV. Complete!
1. Broken

Reyna's eyes were steely as the _Argo II_ settled gently on the ground near the Pomerian Line.

The ladder spilled over the side, and the Seven and Nico climbed off, looking battered and weary. Percy and Annabeth looked the worst, gaunt and haggard and looking like they'd been through hell, Tartarus, and back again.

"You'd better have a damn good explanation for what happened the last time you touched down here," Reyna said stonily.

"Ok," Percy said raspily. "Look, Reyna, I'm not even going to bother to try to talk my way out of this, because I'm no Octavian."

"Hey!" Octavian yelled.

"Shut up!" was yelled by Reyna and Jason.

"I'll tell you the truth. I know I swore on my life that nothing would go wrong. I'm sorry that I was wrong. I usually am. But as one last request I'd like you to hear me out," Percy pleaded, ignoring the interruption like it had never happened.

Reyna looked at him with disbelief. "I thought you said you wouldn't talk your way out of it."

"I'm not. But I still want you to hear me out. I won't be telling you opinions, I'll be telling you what really happened."

Reyna wanted to hear him out. So, so bad. The last time she had seen him peacefully, he was so lighthearted. The last time she had seen him not-so-peacefully, he had been fighting and holding her soldiers hostage in the water. Now he looked broken, frail...almost like an old veteran of the Veitnam War. She had liked him, even though he had destroyed her home once, and caused her to fight. Then he appeared in her life again, amnesiac and lost and confused, and her heart, against her will, had warmed to him. She had offered power to him, something any Roman would want, but he had rejected, which brought her to the realization that he _wasn't_ Roman. He wasn't Roman, and was the hardiest person she had ever known. And then his friends had destroyed her home, again. He wasn't Roman, but defeated the First Cohort, the pride of Camp Jupiter. But he wasn't Percy anymore. The sea-green eyes she had come to love were broken, shattered like a dropped vase.

"Please," Percy pleaded raspily.

Reyna looked at Jason, who had a new scar on his cheek, and his eyes sad. He was supporting Annabeth, who looked just as bad as Percy, her gray eyes just as shattered as Percy's. Piper stood on Annabeth's other side, sporting a quite obvious broken arm and a gash to the head, but her eyes as fierce as Annabeth's eyes used to be. Leo was sitting in front of Annabeth, looking exhausted but alert all the same. She looked at Nico, who was using his sword as a cane, and looked as hollowed and shattered as Percy and Annabeth. Her gaze drifted to Hazel and Frank, who both sported many minor gashes like someone had made glass explode towards them. As unsteady the eight of them were, they were strong.

Reyna looked at Jason again, and he gave her a single, deep nod. She looked at the councilers, who were scattered amongst the crowd, and most of them nodded.

"Go," she said.

Percy took a deep, rasping breath, and began. "Octavian had been somewhat right when he said that he saw Leo. Physically, it was Leo, but on the inside, it was an eidilon, a possesion spirit. It's impossible for anyone to escape out of its grip. I know, because I was possessed by one, as well as Jason."

Reyna was reeling, but didn't let it show.

"To be put bluntly, we battled to the death in a cornfield in Kansas." That elicted some snickers from some of the Romans. Percy gave them an extremely tired smile. "Obviously, no one won, thanks to Piper, who got my Pegasus to knock me out after I knocked Jason from his horse and knocked him out."

Reyna had to suppress a smile. The great hero, knocked out by his own horse...

"After we got out of the States, we flew across the ocean and made it to the Mare Nostrum. I know we were supposed to be killed on sight just for that one thing, and I thank you for not killing us yet. We encountered the jerk known as Hercules, or Heracles, depending on who you are, at the entrance."

Some gasping and murmuring flew throughout the crowd as Percy denounced one of the greatest heroes who ever lived. Reyna just shook her head slightly. Always one to make the gods mad.

"A couple billion monsters later, we arrived in Rome, which is where the Mark of Athena comes in," Percy said. Annabeth pushed herself off Jason, who stood by. Reyna gasped as she fully saw Annabeth's face, which was covered in scratches, burn marks, and bruises. One eyebrow was half gone, and her left eye was swollen shut. She had her ankle wrapped in a Bubble Wrap cast, suggesting she broke or sprained it. She hobbled over to Percy, who hugged her.

"Get a medic to attend to those two while they talk," she hissed to the nearest person, who just so happened to be Bobby.

"But if they're already sentenced to death..."

"They're heroes of Olympus and now the entire world, what on earth do you think I am?!" she whisper-yelled. "I just want to make sure they're telling the truth! Doesn't mean they have to be in pain all the way through!"

Bobby gave her an impish grin. "My respect for you just went from a measly two to a twenty. Thought you really were going to execute them."

"Medic," she reminded him.

"Yes, Reyna."

Percy continued. "I saw her to the beginning of her quest, but beyond that, I don't know."

Annabeth picked up. "I was to find the Mark, like all my predecessors, and who all died. They didn't make it beyond the first test, which was a bunch of ghost believers from another panthenon. I had to pretend I was the _magna mater_ of their cult, so I could get by. When they tested my power, I hit the capstone and the entire building collasped. I brust out the door, and fell twenty feet, which is how I got this," Annabeth geustered to her Bubble Wrap cast. "I broke my ankle from landing on my feet. A box left over from Hermes Express was near, so I used some of the Bubble Wrap inside and a couple pieces of the wooden stairwell that had collasped centries ago."

Annabeth's breathing was worse than Percy's. Every time she talked, Reyna had to resist the urge to yell for help. Gwen was sending Reyna anxious glances, and Reyna caught her and jerked her head towards the two. Gwen burst out, her eyes saying _thank you, thank you, thank you thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou._

Annabeth started coughing, a horrible, gutteral noise that sounded like a mixture of a monster eating sand and growling and someone with pnuenomia. The others surged around Annabeth, forming a protective and battered barrier around the two. Gwen screeched to a halt, and looked at Reyna questioningly. Reyna shrugged.

"Let her in, guys," Percy said. Jason and Piper stepped aside just enough for Gwen to pass through, then sealed the barrier again.

Gwen tended to Annabeth while Percy continued with his side of the story.

"The Piper, Jason, and I had gone down into some cellar that was really home to some nymphs that had been dried up for centuries. In fact, they were the ones who tended to Zeus when he was a baby. Piper, having the cornucopia, told us to pour everything we had into it and dilute and poisoned water that the nymphs used to try and drown us."

"That'll work real well on a son of Neptune," Gwen snorted under her breath.

"Well, it wasn't exactly water, so it did affect me, Gwen."

"Oh..."

"It was more like a oily sort of thing. Anyway, we managed to free the nymphs from their prison, and we got out of the place as fast as we could."

"While they were dealing with that, Frank, Leo, and I were dealing with a lock in the base of a Catholic saint's tomb. Was it a saint?" Hazel asked Frank and Leo. They shrugged. "I don't know. It was some kind of relic, with a lock and door in the base of it. Leo cracked the code, and I went in."

"There were these tourists near, and suddenly they started to attack us, since they were possessed by the eildions. Before, when Piper exorcised Jason, Leo, and Percy, she made them swear on the River Styx to not possess anyone on the ship and leave them alone as long as they were on the ship. Leo and I were forced to go after Hazel. I was thanking the gods that the tourists they inhabited were fat," Frank said.

Some snickers flew around the crowd. Some of the people in the ring were smiling.

"We went down the cramped tunnel, and suddenly it was a room. There were these sphereical things, some robots that didn't work, and pretty much heavan for a Vulcan child." Hazel said.

Leo picked up: "I was freaking out because we had found the place where the Romans in ancient times had taken Archimedes' notes and spheres."

"But apparently, according to our resident Hephaestus kid, we Romans weren't _complicated_ enough," Frank muttered.

"They did do an admirable job of copying the Greek's robots and taking apart the spheres," Leo conceeded.

"And you said that the robots wouldn't work," Frank said.

"They didn't. They only moved because the eildions decided to possess crudely done automatons that didn't even work."

"So? They tasered me and Hazel and almost killed us!"

"And I was happily saving you guy's butts, trust me. You didn't see the finale when the sphere was picking the other one apart and the eildions were fused to the metal and therefore harmless unless someone decides to fix them, which is pretty impossible to do since I melted them."

"Guys! Gods," Percy called them to order.

"No Percy, we are not guys or gods, we are a mixture of the two," Leo corrected.

"Leo," Annabeth said softly, her voice not quite as raspy. Gwen was still working on her, which atested to how badly they were hurt.

"Shutting up, ma'am." Leo swallowed and shut up.

"I have two things to not call me: Annie and ma'am," Annabeth said, smiling a little at Leo's antics.

"Shutting up, sir," Leo announced and kept a straight face as the others started cracking up. Percy cracked a smile at the resident court jester.

"Leo, if I were in the right condition, you'd be pulverised by now, but I'll have to ask Piper to do the honors right now," Annabeth said, her eyes crinkled. Piper took the liberty of smacking Leo on the back of the head.

"Seriously? I just got them to laugh and you smack me on the head instead of saying 'atta boy', 'cuz heavan knows that you've been trying, too!"

"We're kind of in the middle of a war meeting, Leo. With hostile Romans. Would you like to die today?"

"Way to put a damper on things," Leo muttered to himself.

"While they were busy fusing possessers to metal, we were going after Nico. Unfortunately, he had two giants guarding him," Percy continued his part of the story.

"One with an obsession of ballet, and the other with a fashion sense to make Venus keel over and die," Jason put in. Reyna suppressed a laugh.

"Actually they both had a horrible fashion sense," Piper said. Everyone looked at her. "What? Blame the Aphrodite genes for kicking in."

"So, long story short, you fought the two giants and rescued Nico successfully, and you probably looked epic while doing it. End of storytime for you right now, Percy," Gwen cut in. "I'm done with Annabeth, so now she can talk without us feeling like rocks are being scraped over our ears."

Annabeth frowned a little at Gwen, but continued her part of the story. "After the cave, I was having a hard time walking, obviously, and I thought that I was just about as good as my predecessors: dead. I still don't know how I made it through that. I don't remember much of it, because there were so many and I was..." Annabeth swallowed.

"Annabeth, don't let that flaw get to you now," Percy warned.

"I was absolutely terrified. Even afterwards, when we fell, I could've dealt with that, except for the..." Annabeth's jaw clenched, and Percy waved Gwen away. Percy wrapped his arms around her, and Annabeth pounded against his chest. Then she collapsed, sobbing, and the retelling of her story was just too much. Everything that she had kept under lock and key burst out of her in a torrent of tears and screaming.

Reyna was shocked. A strong warrior with a fire in her eyes, crumbled to pieces in front of her.

Then she noticed that Percy was crying as well, burying his head in Annabeth's hair, his sobs heaving his back, and all that anyone could see was a mixture of two great warriors who fell from their former glory.

To say Reyna was floored that something could break both Annabeth and Percy, would be a serious understatement.


	2. Mending

Reyna swept inside the Praetors' Villa, and promptly flopped on her bed in exhaustion. Her mind was still teeming with thoughts, though. What on earth could possibly break both of them, together?

"How many times have I told you not to sleep in your armor?"

Reyna was up and in a defensive position before even her dogs moved. "And how many times have I told you not to do that?!"

Jason shrugged. He changed topic, startling Reyna: "You want to know what happened."

A statement, not a question. Jason continued without even waiting for her to nod. "Annabeth was up against Arachne. That's why all of her brothers and sisters died on that quest. She's the only one who survived. She made Arachne weave her own trap, out of the webbing that encased the Athena Parthenos."

Reyna's eyes grew wide. "You mean-"

"The statue is safe on Olympus. We couldn't very well replace the fake with the real one without raising a bunch of questions from the mortals and risk having our society revealed."

Jason paused. "The Athena Parthenos was located right over an entrance to Tartarus. The flooring started to fail, and it almost toppled into the chasm. Annabeth was covered in webs, and none of us thought to cut them off of her. We didn't realize until Nico told us that one of the webs on her was attached to Arachne, who had already long fallen into the pit. We were too busy trying to save the statue. Percy tried to grab onto her, but the weight on her broken ankle was too much, and they went over."

Reyna gasped, though she had been expecting it. It was like someone had knocked the wind out of her, and she couldn't breathe. Jason looked at her sympathetically before continuing.

"Percy managed to grab onto something, but the weight was too much. Annabeth's strength was gone, so Percy couldn't let go of her without her falling into the pit. So he yelled up to Nico, 'The other side! We'll see you there! Promise me, Nico!'. He let go of the wiring, and they both fell."

Jason's eyes seemed to be distant. At the moment, his ears were ringing with the chaos of the cavern, the shouting, the groaning of the floor, and the grunting. But he thought that everyone heard the one sentence that changed the Seven and Nico's lives: "As long as we're together."

" 'As long as we're together,' " Jason repeated. "And you know what Reyna? I heard that sentence. Everyone heard that sentence, and no one even knew it until they were all on the Argo. It had freaking rained cars, and we didn't know that we had heard that sentence, the last sentence before they fell. We all knew about Percy's fatal flaw. And it never occured to us to see why Nico was shouting at the cavern. I could've done something. We all could've done something. But no, I didn't do anything, and I was the closest."

Jason buried his head in his hands. "Why didn't I realize something was wrong other than the cavern was falling down around us, the Athena Parthenos almost fell into Tartarus, and it was raining cars? Why didn't I realize?"

"Lightning McQueen, you look at me, or so help me Jupiter I will kick _you_ into Tartarus!" Reyna demanded, standing up from her bed. Jason looked up. "You didn't realize, because you had chaos around you. It's a miracle that you heard that statement or noticed Nico yelling at all, so stop beating yourself up about it! Gods, don't give me your broken eyes. You are a Roman, Jason. Everyone has a breaking point. I get that. But when you break, you had better patch yourself up or so help me Pluto I will _murder_ you, if not just to get your shattered eyes out of my sight! You didn't look like this when you lost most of your Cohort. You didn't look like this when I almost died. You didn't look this haunted or afraid or _broken and shattered_ during the Titan War!"

Jason looked at her straight in the eye. "That's because there are worse things to see than death."

Reyna slapped him. Jason put a hand to his cheek slowly in astonishment. "What did you just do to me?" Jason demanded.

"You didn't react when I called you the car, you didn't react when I ranted at you, so I had to resort to physical pain!" Jason looked mad. "See! See! _There's_ the fire that I know and love! _There's_ the Jason that you are! I managed to dig you out of your depressed shell, and now I expect you to _stay_ that way, because you aren't Jason if your depressed. Who's the one who pranked Praetor Mark on April Fools' day when he was nine?"

Jason grumbled, but complied: "Me."

"Who's the one who didn't give a crap about my rank and still teased me relentlessly about the bob I had when I first got the Praetorship?" Reyna demanded.

Jason brightened a bit. "Me."

"Who's the one who truly led the storm of Mount Othyrus?"

Jason smiled. "Me."

"Who's the one who turned the opinion of the other Cohorts around?"

He straightened. "Me. But then, when I disappeared, it turned around again, so don't count that one."

Reyna frowned. "Who's the one who's beating himself up over something that couldn't be avoided?"

Jason protested, and Reyna held up a hand. "Did you have a blade?"

"No," Jason said, looking puzzled.

"Were you tired?"

"Uh, yeah, I just got finished fighting two giants!"

"Mm-kay. What did you do when you got back on the ship?"

"Collapse."

"Ok. So, you had no blade to cut the string off Annabeth's ankle, you were falling out of the sky anyways, and you certainly did not have the strength to haul up two people, much less two people and a two-ton spider." Reyna conceeded.

"Yeah,"

"So, there was absolutely nothing you could've done." Reyna laid it out.

"Rey..."

"Don't you dare 'Rey...' me, Grace. First you disappear, then you reappear with a girlfriend, and then I find out you have a Greek sister. Oh, and yes, you've been depressed and emo because you didn't do anything about something that you couldn't do anything about," Reyna snapped at him. "How's your day going?" she added sarcastically.

"Suckish," Jason replied. "I wake up on a school bus, holding hands with a girl I don't know, and I don't even know my own name or age or what on earth I'm even doing there. Then I visit the Zeus cabin and find a picture of a thought long-dead sister who apparently took care of Annabeth when she was seven and then got turned into a tree and then joined the Hunters of Artemis when she reverted back to human form, thanks to Percy, so she's now immortal. Then I land here and have Leo blowing up the place because of a stupid possessing spirit that I'd like to punch in the face. I also land here to see _my city_ in shambles. Then my new _boy_" he put emphasis on that word, "best friend and his girlfriend falls down the bottomless recycling pit of doom."

Reyna snorted at the wording.

Jason finished his rant: "Oh yes, just fine."

They looked at each other and promptly dissolved into hysterical laughter.


	3. Scar

**If you've already read this chapter, skip to the second section.**

Reyna walked into the Fifth Cohort without preamble. There was a small scramble as Romans clambered out of bed and stood at attention for their Praetor.

"At ease," she said gently. Some of them relaxed and flopped back into bed. Others relaxed and looked at her strangely. She never used that kind of voice. "Although you might want to pay attention, since it's about Percy Ja-"

Reyna was abruptly cut off by a multitude of voices. "QUIET! Hear me out."

Everyone shut up. "Thank you. I know Percy's tight spot is a sore subject for you all, espescially since I was the one who put it into play that Percy swore on his life that everything would be fine. One of you in this Cohort knows that I was insincere about executing Percy."

More grumbles broke out, and then her words sunk in.

"Yes, if he chooses to stay, he will be punished for the rash promise that he could not keep and going into Mare Nostrum, as well as Jason will be for clunking Dakota, but they and their friends will not be executed. They will not be considered traitors, and they will not be driven out." Reyna said into the stunned silence.

Reyna was then tackled in a hug. "Oh, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you," Gwen whispered breathlessly into her ear.

The Fifth Cohort went up in cheers, which was heard throughout the camp.

* * *

The _Argo II_ landed at the docks mostly gracefully, despite the damage to it. Leo, at the helm, carefully maneuvered the _Argo_ between two other ships. Annabeth and Percy stood at the where the plank would be put to help them disembark, leaning on each other. In a horseshoe-shaped semi-circle, the rest of the Seven circled around Annabeth, Percy, and Nico protectively.

There was dead silence as the plank was put into place. Leo joined the semi-circle as the Seven and Nico descended from the _Argo_. Annabeth stumbled, and the rest of crew surged forward. The camp was growing increasingly worried about their leaders, and overall, the crew. But it was the leaders that got the campers.

The way the crew came down the ramp was terrifying. Annabeth and Percy leaned on each other, Piper supporting Annabeth and Jason helping Percy. Frank and Hazel were in the back, also leaning on each other and yet ready to catch Nico, who insisted on standing by himself with the help of his Stygian iron sword, and Leo was last, wary, slightly jumpy, and prone to having his fingers burst into flames at inopportune times, scaring the campers, but apparently not the crew.

Chiron trotted forward as they walked down the plank, looking worried. The crew reached the bottom of the ramp.

Some of the older campers thrust their way through the crowd: Clarrise, Katie, Chris, the Stolls, Juniper the dryad, Grover, even Thalia and some of the Hunters were there. Will Solace from the Apollo cabin and Nyssa from the Hephaestus cabin also came forward.

A Nike girl started clapping slowly, the sound echoing through the suffocating silence. As people shook themselves out of their reverie, they started clapping as well. Soon it was applause, then roaring.

Chiron came up, and Piper and Jason backed away from Percy and Annabeth. Percy and Annabeth themselves straightened. Chiron murmured something to Annabeth that no one else heard except for Percy, then hugged her. Annabeth willingly hugged him back.

Chiron invited Percy in, and the three of them stood in the midst of roaring applause, a war-ravaged camp, and campers who have battled for their lives. The trio stood there, one acting as their rock, the other two practically collapsing. Chiron gently picked up Annabeth and put her on his back, carefully avoiding jarring her broken ankle. Then he put Percy up as well, and galloped off, leaving the rest of the campers to wonder what the Hades just happened.

Jason waved tiredly and said, "Ok, thank you, all that crap that I don't feel like saying right now, and now me and the rest of the crew are gonna go pass out somewhere comfortable for a week or so." Weak laughter flew around the crowd.

The older campers that were closer to Percy and Annabeth formed a jagged circle around the crew, and the younger ones formed a ragged honor guard.

When Jason made to go to the Zeus cabin and found that Clarisse was blocking the way, he was too tired to even protest further than, "Why?"

"I think we can all say that the Poseidon cabin is easily the most comfortable and welcoming cabin, even if it _is_ Prissy who inhabits it, Jason," she said in a rough voice that could even be described as gentle (for Clarisse, that is).

Jason managed a tired laugh. "I take it that you have no daily insult for me today, eh, Clarisse?"

"You look like you got run over by a Lastrygonian soccer team in cleats," Clarisse immediately supplied.

"You're too nice," Jason said sarcastically. "Who are you, and what have you done to Clarisse?"

She punched him in the arm. "You earned my respect, that's what you've done, Superman." Jason scowled at the many-mentioned 'blond Superman' joke. "Get in there. It's no fun thrusting someone's head into a toliet if they can't fight back at least a little bit."

Jason figured that was as nice as he was going to get. He stumbled into the Poseidon cabin and flopped onto the first bed he saw and wasn't occupied.

"Hey Jason?" Piper asked sleepily.

"Yeah?"

"You actually got Clarisse to be nice," she muttered.

"Percy told me once that your sister was a best friend to Clarisse." Jason's words were slurring.

"Which one?"

"Silena. Silena Beaugard."

Just before he really did pass out for six days, he saw that one of the beds was occupied by two people: one blond, one black-haired, both of them looking peaceful for once.

* * *

_I keep seeing the horrible things shown to me in Tartarus. I keep being plunged into memories, to surface trembling and blinking back tears. Every time, it feels like I've had a bucket of ice water dumped on my head and someone executed a perfect roundhouse kick to my ribcage, knocking my breath out of my lungs. Every time, a little part of me dies from fear and heart break._

_-Annabeth Chase's Dream Journal_

* * *

_Camp in flames. Camp torn up. Camp collasped. Chiron buried under the rubble of the Big House. Leo crushed in Bunker 9. Piper missing. Malcom somewhere under the ruins of the Athena cabin. Percy-Percy._

_A lock of black hair is all that's left of the great reign of Perseus Jackson._

_I fall to me knees, trying to move the slab of rock that crushed him, but I couldn't. I started to scream in frustration and greif, and started to shake, more and more, and I felt cold, like I was having an epileptic seizure, and I kept screaming and kicking and thrashing and punching whatever I could reach, mad with grief._

* * *

"Annabeth! Annabeth! Annabeth, it was just a dream! Wake up, _please_!"

Percy's voice drew her back into the waking world. She was in his arms, bridal-style. Annabeth was soaking wet and shivering, her throat raw from screaming, her knuckles bleeding. There were several dents in the wall, one of them was very obviously a foot, which explained why her still-mending broken ankle was practically screaming at her to stop moving.

Annabeth realized that it was a dream, and Percy was here, safe, even though she had punched him hard in the nose, and otherwise not-crushed. She burst into tears, something very un-Annabeth.

Several months had passed, and they were back at Camp Half-Blood. Even though it was technically not allowed for two campers to be alone in a cabin, Chiron had decided that it was best for the Athena cabin (after she had pulverised the lot of them in her sleep) and her to sleep in Percy's cabin, since Percy was very capable of handling himself. The Hephaestus cabin even set up an alarm in the Poseidon cabin to the Big House to alert Chiron so that one could punch it if the other was having their night terrors and pulverising the cabin. It had happened more than once.

The alarm wasn't going off, so Annabeth curled up in the fetal position and trying to get the terrifying image of a crushed Percy out of her head.

Percy picked her up again, and put her in his bed, then climbed in. They always had no nightmares if they slept together, even if it was a twin bed. The only nightmare they ever had was falling out of bed, which always amused the other, since normally it was Percy who fell and Annabeth who snickered.

It would take until their early twenties to never have a night terror, but then, they got married at twenty-two, so they still slept together.

A satisfying end to the terror they often called their early lives.

"They say time heals. It does, but it always leaves a throbbing scar." -The Writer of This Three-shot


End file.
